


come down now, they'll say

by altilis



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Danger, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/altilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set the night between Episode 9 and 10, assuming it took more than a day to get Korra going again. Tenzin finds himself gravitating towards old feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come down now, they'll say

When they all return to the Island and he helps her to a guest dormitory among the female acolytes – Tenzin feels like a young man all over again: getting into trouble and getting out of it, wondering how they managed to survive this time, except this time they didn't have Katara or Toph waiting to berate them. And he's married.  
   
"If you need anything—" Tenzin begins to say, standing in the doorway to her room and trying to fool himself that he's not staring as she strips out of her armor.  
   
"I know," Lin interrupts, tossing a gauntlet onto the bed, "I'll grab one of the acolytes. I've been here before, Tenzin."  
   
"Of course." He manages to look away, his hands folded neatly behind his back. "I'll see you tomorrow."  
   
"Bright and early."  
   
Tenzin slides the door shut behind him.  
   
\--  
   
He sleeps fitfully but wakes at dawn like usual. The island barely begins to wake, and the dull roar from the city, though ever-present, is nearly swallowed by the roll of the tide against the rocky cliffs. As he dresses Tenzin reviews what has to be done today, both the mundane and the important. His thoughts linger on Lin, and he wonders if she'll stay on the island now that her policemen are safe. Maybe she might even have the chance to teach Korra some metal bending.  
   
They see each other at breakfast and sit together with a tall pitcher of juice and two bowls of congee between them. For a brief moment, when she drains her glass in one long gulp and then announces, "I'm going to train," Tenzin feels twenty-five again. He's three heartbeats away from rising and joining her, just like he used to, until he realizes what he should say.  
   
"You can take the cove. Again." He adds when she gives him that 'I don't like being told' look, which morphs into a faint smile, and she gives him a curt wave before leaving the dining hall.  
   
Lin walks by Pema on her way out and trades a tight 'good morning.'  
   
\--  
   
When they were younger, Republic City didn't have dirigibles patrolling its skies, so the roofs and pinnacles of buildings stretched out like a playground up against the mountains. The city canopy was open to whoever had the means to explore it.  
   
Tenzin doesn't remember the exact year Toph gave Lin her wires, but it was years before they started dating. Lin pulled herself to new heights all the time, scaling concrete and metal until Tenzin could see her from his glider when he would still observe the city from the sky, separated from his lineage and responsibilities on the streets below. When Lin joined him, they explored the city together, enjoying the privacy it gave them. After their relationship finally went public, it was one of the few realms they still had to themselves.  
   
In the morning when they would meet briefly at the train station—Tenzin to his father at City Hall, Lin going to her mother at the Bureau—Lin would pick any one of the skyscrapers in the shining white playground of downtown, and the moment night fell, Tenzin would take off from the roof of City Hall with that towering spire in his sights.  
   
Lin would always beat him there.  
   
Sometimes they would have a small snack, dumplings or apples, before starting on their newest urban adventure. Sometimes they would race from one end of the city, dodging buildings and daring gravity, until they came to the edge of the mountains. Sometimes, they wouldn't leave the building at all and simply sit and talk, sheltered in a convenient shadow of the architecture (also convenient when they would move beyond just talking).  
   
They learned a lot about each other while they were several hundred feet up in the air, publically private with each other. Tenzin never forgot how close the edge was while they were together there, how a light push from his lap would have sent her over the edge, how she could have thrown him into the sky. Kisses in a tiny, cramped corner of the roof never brought the same rush as kisses on the safe, solid ground. He never held her as tight in the gardens as on the pinnacles of the bridge towers.  
   
As much as Tenzin wishes to believe he's too old for that romantic excitement, the last few weeks have shown him otherwise. As happy as he is with Pema and the children on the island, where everything holds to an ethereal calm, he can't deny that something has awoken in him, something linked to those same adventures he used to have in the skies with a woman who used to be his only.  
   
This young love for adventure gnaws at him and guilts him throughout the day; part of the reason he and Lin had separated was because he needed a stable, grounded relationship without the fear of sudden death. His father had died and left Tenzin to be the only air bender; he couldn't wait.  
I need children, he had said, nearly choking on the bitter reality, and they will need their parents.  
   
They had grown up together. Nothing Lin could have said would have convinced him that her job wasn't dangerous—lethal, even.  
   
Tenzin steps out for a walk at sunset, right before dinner is due, and he sees Lin walking back up from the cove. He stops and waves when she waves at him, and then falls into step next to her as she walks back to the dormitories.  
   
"Is Korra okay?" she asks, wiping at her temple with a small towel.  
   
"She'll be fine."  
   
"And the Avatar?"  
   
"Her friends taking care of her as we speak. Asami, especially—I have to admit I'm surprised…"  
   
Lin snorts. "Why? You expected her to be like me?"  
   
"Well, I—" Of course Tenzin means like her; Asami seems spirited and independent, like Lin was.  
   
She lifts a hand as if to brush off the isuse. "Forget about it. I think you need to look a little harder at that group."  
   
When they reach the threshold of the dormitory, and Tenzin stops. Lin took a few steps beyond, and then stops as well to look at him. "Top of the library," She says and continues walking. Tenzin stares at her back for a long moment before turning towards the main pavilion.  
   
\--  
   
Tenzin watches the library from his meditation pavilion on the other end of the island. The yellow lights illuminate the marble walls at every level, but the curled lip of the roof shades the roof, leaving the golden spire to shine from ambient light alone. If he looks long enough, he sees a shadowy figure standing by the spire—and then it moves out of his sight again, and Tenzin questions whether it is really there.  
   
After deciding the night wasn't getting any darker, he stands and grabs his old glider off the floor. He taps it on the ground to release the wings and jumps off the back wall and over the sea to catch the air currents upward. The night air feels cold and refreshing against his skin and only needs the gentlest of his bending to send him soaring. When his wings are full and his heart nearly overwhelmed with this old freedom, he banks sharply towards the tall, golden library.  
   
He lands on the north side of the roof, where nothing but the bay and the city stretched out on the horizon. "Took you long enough," Lin says, pushing off the spire she was leaning against as Tenzin snaps the glider shut again. She steps up beside him, but her eyes are always on the city, her city, with her hands braced on her hips. "It really is like old times, isn't it?"  
   
Slowly, Tenzin turns to face the city as well, holding the glider loose in one hand. "Almost." Except (as he remembers, and she probably will, too) during the old times they would share a meal and then share a night, watching the city glow for hours, wrapped up in each other. He would have his hands secure on her hips while she looped an arm around his neck, fingers following the line of his jaw—  
   
"How are your kids dealing with this?"  
   
Tenzin sighs. "Jinora reads the papers, and both she and Ikki have been starting to ask questions…we need to finish all of this before Pema tells them to ask me instead."  
   
Lin chuckles and crouches down to sit at the edge of the roof, her boots dangling in the air. "You could send them to me. I'll tell them."  
   
"Maybe when they're older." Tenzin sits next to her, still keeping the spine of the glider in one hand. "But this also needs to end before one of us loses our bending."  
   
"You think I would let him?" Lin asks, looking over, and Tenzin stares a moment longer at the city before meeting her gaze.  
   
"I don't think you would have the chance to stop him, Lin."  
   
"Thanks for the support."  
   
"Lin, I meant from what we've seen—"  
   
"No," Lin leans forward, her elbows on her knees, "I know what you mean, and you're right. If he captures us, it'll be too late."  
   
This isn't the conversation Tenzin wanted to have after a long day; he believes, by the slump of her shoulders and the quiet tone of her voice, that Lin shared the sentiment.  
   
"Did you still want to visit the Western Air Temple?" Spontaneity had been one of his father's greatest tools; Tenzin used it when people least expected it of him, and tonight the power of it is enough to make Lin chuckle.  
   
"Now?"  
   
"Later, when Korra is ready to explore the world."  
   
"You want me to come with?"  
   
"Unless you would rather be chief of police."  
   
Lin looks at him for a long moment with a strange, searching expression on her face, and then she leaps up on the roof. Her boots clacked on the tiles as she stepped away. "Don't do this again, Tenzin."  
   
Tenzin scrambles to follow her, air whirling around him to bring him to his feet. The glider is left there on the edge, sandwiched between two shingles. "Lin, what—"  
   
"You know what you're doing." Lin rounds on him and points her finger inches from his face. "You probably don't even know, you airhead, but you do it every damn time—" Except this time Tenzin knows what he was doing, to both her and himself, and that is the guilt that had been gnawing at him all this time; his need to talk to her during this crisis is pulling them out of this safe zone of platonic friendship. The horror roaring in his head drowns out her words momentarily, and he stares at her face, watching her lips move as she berates his stupidity, standing silent and unable to bring himself to do anything more. "—getting me to care! About you!"  
   
She shoves both hands against his chest, and dormant muscle memory takes over: his hands wrap around her waist like he is stepping off Cabbage Corp Executive, and they dive over the edge together.  
   
The hiss of the wires barely beats the rush of wind in his ears. Tenzin didn't have to look to know the ground was too close; the library wasn't as tall as the skyscrapers downtown. One hand keeps firm on Lin's waist while the other makes a wide arc in the air. They slow then stop with a wrenching tug mid-air before dropping like dead weight onto the ground, right at the edge of the sea cliff.  
   
The surf crashes against the rocks below as they both try to catch their breath. Slowly, Lin pushes to roll off him onto the grass, laughing. "Well," she says as she retracts the wires into her armor, "Never thought I'd do that again."  
   
"Likewise." Wincing, back a little sore from the landing, Tenzin sits up. He looked over to Lin and then away again. "…you're right about this, Lin, but—"  
   
"Don't." Lin offered him a hand and he took it to stand. He released her hand a second too late, and both of them knew it, but as he felt the heat on his face, she didn't look bothered in the least. "I should head back."  
   
Tenzin almost protests; instead, he sighs. "…yes, that would be best."  
   
But he still isn't prepared when she steps forward and kisses him on the cheek; his face burns with the surprise of it. When she steps back again, Lin gives him a soft, sad smile that he hasn't seen in years. "It's been good," she says, turns, and walks away, leaving him there at the cliff edge with the glow of the city at his back.

**Author's Note:**

> Also at [Dreamwidth.](http://altilis.dreamwidth.org/38576.html)


End file.
